The Reason
by amura
Summary: Methos fic, taking place after the Horsemen stuff. Duncan's angry, Methos is leaving. (not written as slash, but hey, i don't really care how you take it...)


Disclaimer: Obviously not mine *sigh*  
  
Spoilers: Horsemen stuff. Then again, if you don't know about that, you probably won't understand most of this story. : p  
  
And with out further ado...  
  
The Reason  
  
I'm not a perfect person  
  
There's many things I wish I didn't do  
  
But I continue learning  
  
I never meant to do those things to you  
  
Methos stood looking across the street, towards the bar. Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself for what he was about to do. A very un- Methos-like thing. He was going to say goodbye.  
  
Leaving wasn't unusual for him, no, but this time he was letting them know. He had to. He wasn't planning on coming back this time. He realized he was going soft; he never used to return to the place he ran from, not for a few centuries anyway.  
  
It had been a hard few months. He had tried, he really did, but he just couldn't take the looks anymore. Why did that overgrown Boy Scout have to always ignore the good someone's done and focus only on the bad? Yes, Methos realized some of the things he had done were very bad, maybe even evil, but they had happened millennia ago. In those times, good and evil had very different meanings than they do now. He regrets them now, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that they happened.  
  
Methos sighed in frustration, running a hand through short, dark hair. What did the Highlander expect? For him to just come out and tell him, like it was just another anecdote to share while having a beer with friends. "Hey, I stood on the same stage with Julius Caesar and the Rolling Stones, and, oh, by the way, I've also raped and murdered thousands for the fun it. Another beer?" No, he couldn't have done that. He knew how MacLeod would have reacted: exactly as he had. So, no, he didn't say anything, but he hadn't lied. He never claimed to be perfect. How many times had he told them: he's just a guy.  
  
Methos sighed again, jabbing his hands in his pockets. 'Well,' he thought, 'might as well get this over with.' And he went into the bar.  
  
And so I have to say before I go  
  
That I just want you to know  
  
I've found a reason for me  
  
To change who I used to be  
  
A reason to start over new  
  
and the reason is you  
  
The familiar buzz he felt as he came in let Methos know that MacLeod was here. He saw the Highlander react to his presence by straightening and reaching under his jacket for the ever-present katana. The fact that he didn't really relax once he saw it was Methos only furthered the older Immortal's resolve to leave.  
  
For a moment Methos hesitated. 'What am I doing here? I shouldn't have come.' But he knew he couldn't walk out now without the boy coming after him and demanding an explanation for his behavior. 'Or just to rub my inadequacies in my nose yet again,' he thought bitterly.  
  
His face, however, betrayed none of this. Nonchalantly, as if he didn't notice the dark look MacLeod was giving him, he walked up to bar. Slouching on a barstool, he caught Joe's eye. "Got any beer in this place?" he quipped.  
  
Joe snorted, but grinned back. "With the amount you mooch offa me, Old Man, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't." He handed Methos a beer.  
  
As the Immortal took a drink, he pretended to not see the Highlander still sitting all tense, as if expecting Methos to attack at any moment. 'It's as if I just became someone completely different. Doesn't he realize I'm not the same person I was back then? That I've changed?'  
  
Rolling his eyes at the Scot, Methos said, "You know, you can stop waiting for an ambush. I'm not gonna go for your head or anything." And just to try and lighten the mood, added, "I mean, c'mon, that would be pretty stupid, in the middle of a crowded bar and all."  
  
The Highlander actually had the decency to appear embarrassed for a moment. But that moment quickly passed. "That never really to matter to you before, now, did it?"  
  
I'm sorry that I hurt you  
  
It's something I must live with everyday  
  
And all the pain I put you through  
  
I wish that I could take it all away  
  
And be the one who catches all your tears  
  
Methos winced. 'Okay,' he thought, 'maybe I deserved that. Maybe.'  
  
"Look," he said aloud, "I'm sorry you had to find out about my checkered past like that, but there really is nothing anyone can do about it now, alright?" This whole game the young fool was playing at was really starting to irritate him. Methos knew what he did. He lived with that knowledge every day. Wasn't that enough for the oh-so-noble MacLeod? Why did he feel he had to constantly remind him?  
  
"Sorry about the way I found out, or the fact that I did?" the Highlander shot back.  
  
Methos stared at him. What right did he have? What made him so much better than everyone that he could judge them? The older immortal was getting angry, with the man next to him as well as himself. 'I shouldn't have come. I should have just left. I don't even know what I hoped to accomplish; nothing I say to him will make it any better.'  
  
Joe watched the exchange with growing concern. Sure, the Old Man did some bad stuff, but that was a while ago. Duncan wasn't even alive then. Anyone looking at the lean man slouched in from of him would have seen the epitome of calmness. But Joe wasn't anyone. He saw the anger flash, however briefly, in Methos's eyes, and it made him go cold. "Mac..." he warned softly.  
  
Neither of them was paying attention to the mortal anymore, though.  
  
"Does it even matter anymore?" Methos asked coldly. "Is it any wonder I didn't tell you? The way you're acting, I'm glad I didn't. You're behaving like a child. I'm sorry that I didn't meet you're great expectations of me, that I'm not the wise, honorable legend you children seem to think I am. I kept telling you I wasn't, is it my fault you refuse to listen? I'm. Just. A. Guy." He emphasized each word. "I never claimed to be any better than the next one."  
  
MacLeod just glared. "What are you doing here?"  
  
That's why I need you to here  
  
I've found a reason for me  
  
To change who I used to be  
  
A reason to start over new  
  
and the reason is You  
  
Methos became still. 'Why indeed?' he thought. 'You wouldn't believe it if I told you. I know I don't.'  
  
"I'm beginning to wonder myself," he answered in almost a growl, finishing his beer, even as Joe quietly put a fresh one in front of him. 'I don't know what I expected,' he thought to himself. 'Yes, you do,' that annoying little voice in the back of his mind said back, 'you wanted to be talked out of leaving. To get that feeling of being wanted that you've grown so used to after not having it for so long.' He promptly told that voice to shut up.  
  
But the voice was right. He had hoped that MacLeod would understand, finally understand, all Methos had done for him. All he had given up. All he had changed. For he did change, whether the Boy Scout refused to notice or not. Before he had met the Highlander, all he cared about was surviving. He did what he had to in order to live just one more day. It was his motto, after all. Live, grow stronger, fight another day. Before they met, the thought of being the first to attack another Immortal, or anyone for that matter, would never have been considered, not for long anyway. To do it for another's sake was just unthinkable.  
  
But he had. He'd done all those and more for the arrogant Scot. He killed his friend, his -brother-. For him. For Duncan bloody MacLeod of the bloody clan MacLeod.  
  
He had tried to make something more of his life. To find a meaning for his long life that he hadn't had when MacLeod first found him, a pathetic excuse for a man, hiding from the world, from living, in hopes of getting even older.  
  
"You think you can just pretend none of it happened?" MacLeod asked angrily. "That you didn't do those horrible things to all those people? Oh, that's right," he said sarcastically, "you haven't felt guilt since the eleventh century. Well, some of us don't have that luxury. We can't just forget."  
  
I'm not a perfect person  
  
I never meant to do those things to you  
  
And so I have to say before I go  
  
That I just want you to know  
  
All the energy seemed to drain out of Methos. He slumped further in chair, looking more weary than Joe had ever seen him. It was in this moment that the Watcher could truly believe the man in front of him was 5,000 years old. He looked every bit that age.  
  
Methos finished his beer and put the empty bottle back on the table. "Thanks for the beer," he said softly. He placed some bills on the table, looking into the mortal's eyes, willing him to understand, if not now then someday. "Good bye, Joe."  
  
The oldest Immortal got up and headed for the door, leaving a stunned Joe and a fuming Duncan.  
  
"Is that your answer to everything?" MacLeod shouted after him. "How you think you can solve every problem? By running away? You've always run away!"  
  
"But I came back!" He yelled, spinning around to face the Highlander. He added softer, quietly, "I always came back."  
  
With that, he walked out the door into the night.  
  
I've found a reason for me  
  
To change who I used to be  
  
A reason to start over new  
  
and the reason is you  
  
The older Immortal's presence began to fade as he went further from the bar. Duncan glanced at the money on the counter and looked up, meeting Joe's eyes, and seeing the truth in them even as he became aware of it. And as the buzz became more and more distant, he became afraid. Afraid that once it disappeared all together, it would never come back.  
  
Methos was leaving for real this time. He wasn't coming back.  
  
As soon as the money hit the table, they knew it. The Old Man did a lot of things, but paying for his drinks wasn't one of them. It was the one thing he left Duncan and Joe, the knowledge he was coming back, no matter how long he was gone. After all, he wouldn't leave for good without paying his ever-growing tab.  
  
But he did. He paid. And he said good-bye. Methos never said good- bye; there was never a warning. He was always there one day and gone the next. But he was right. He had always come back. And it did count for something. Duncan realized that now. For a man who was as paranoid as Methos, he did hang around the same area a lot. Even after he was found out. It would have been safer for him to leave when he was first discovered, change identities, disappear. It definitely would have been more Methos-like. But he stuck around. He came back. And now he wouldn't.  
  
Joe and Duncan stared at each other for a moment before MacLeod jumped up and ran out the door after the oldest Immortal.  
  
"Adam!" he shouted, trying to catch up to the figure getting smaller in the distance, but still conscious of anyone who might be Listening. "Adam, wait!"  
  
The other Immortal either didn't hear him, or didn't listen. Whichever it was, he didn't respond one way or another. He continued to walk ever further away from the bar.  
  
"Adam, stop," Duncan said breathlessly, finally catching up. He grabbed the other man's arm and spun him around to face him. Methos just looked at the ground, too tired to fight any more. Duncan just looked at him, catching his breath, until he finally looked up and met his eyes.  
  
"Don't go."  
  
It was said so softly that Methos almost he had heard wrong, but the look in the younger man's eyes told him he didn't. They were pleading with Methos to listen, to hear the unsaid words as well as the spoken ones. And he did. MacLeod understood. And he wanted Methos to stay. The older man just stood there, not really believing what was happening.  
  
"Don't go," MacLeod repeated, forgiving and begging for forgiveness with his eyes.  
  
I've found a reason to show  
  
A side of me you didn't know  
  
A reason for all that I do  
  
And the reason is you  
  
Methos nodded mutely.  
  
He understood. 


End file.
